And then she was carried to the churchyard at Edmonton. There she rests in the grave with her brother. In life they were never separated, and in death they are not divided.



JANE AUSTEN

Delaford is a nice place I can tell you; exactly what I call a nice, old-fashioned place, full of comforts, quite shut in with great garden-walls that are covered with fruit-trees, and such a mulberry-tree in the corner. Then there is a dovecote, some delightful fish-ponds, and a very pretty canal, and everything, in short, that one could wish for; and moreover it's close to the church and only a quarter of a mile from the turnpike road. —Sense and Sensibility



It was at Cambridge, England, I met him—a fine, intelligent clergyman he was, too.

"He's not a 'Varsity man," said my new acquaintance, speaking of Doctor Joseph Parker, the world's greatest preacher. "If he were, he wouldn't do all these preposterous things, you know."

"He's a little like Henry Irving," I ventured apologetically.

"True, and what absurd mannerisms—did you ever see the like! Yes, one's from Yorkshire and the other's from Cornwall, and both are Philistines."

He laughed at his little joke and so did I, for I always try to be polite.

So I went my way, and as I strolled it came to me that my clerical friend was right—a university course might have taken all the individuality out of these strong men and made of their genius a purely neutral decoction. And when I thought further and considered how much learning has done to banish wisdom, it was a satisfaction to remember that Shakespeare at Oxford did nothing beyond making the acquaintance of an inn-keeper's wife.

It hardly seems possible that a Harvard degree would have made a stronger man of Abraham Lincoln; or that Edison, whose brain has wrought greater changes than that of any other man of the century, was the loser by not being versed in physics as taught at Yale.

The Law of Compensation never rests, and the men who are taught too much from books are not taught by Deity. Most education in the past has failed to awaken in its subject a degree of intellectual consciousness. It is the education that the Jesuits served out to the Indian. It made him peaceable, but took all dignity out of him. From a noble red man he descended into a dirty Injun, who signed away his heritage for rum.

The world's plan of education has mostly been priestly—we have striven to inculcate trust and reverence. We have cited authorities and quoted precedents and given examples: it was a matter of memory; while all the time the whole spiritual acreage was left untilled.

A race educated in this way never advances, save as it is jolted out of its notions by men with either a sublime ignorance of, or an indifference to, what has been done and said. These men are always called barbarians by their contemporaries: they are jeered and hooted. They supply much mirth by their eccentricities. After they are dead the world sometimes canonizes them and carves on their tombs the word "Savior."

Do I then plead the cause of ignorance? Well, yes, rather so. A little ignorance is not a dangerous thing. A man who reads too much—who accumulates too many facts-gets his mind filled to the point of saturation; matters then crystallize and his head becomes a solid thing that refuses to let anything either in or out. In his soul there is no guest-chamber. His only hope for progress lies in another incarnation.

And so a certain ignorance seems a necessary equipment for the doing of a great work. To live in a big city and know what others are doing and saying; to meet the learned and powerful, and hear their sermons and lectures; to view the unending shelves of vast libraries is to be discouraged at the start. And thus we find that genius is essentially rural—a country product. Salons, soirees, theaters, concerts, lectures, libraries, produce a fine mediocrity that smiles at the right time and bows when 't is proper, but it is well to bear in mind that George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen were all country girls, with little companionship, nourished on picked-up classics, having a healthy ignorance of what the world was saying and doing.

* * * * *

It is over a hundred years since Jane Austen lived. But when you tramp that five miles from Overton, where the railroad-station is, to Steventon, where she was born, it doesn't seem like it. Rural England does not change much. Great fleecy clouds roll lazily across the blue, overhead, and the hedgerows are full of twittering birds that you hear but seldom see; and the pastures contain mild-faced cows that look at you with wide-open eyes over the stone walls; and in the towering elm-trees that sway their branches in the breeze crows hold a noisy caucus. And it comes to you that the clouds and the blue sky and the hedgerows and the birds and the cows and the crows are all just as Jane Austen knew them—no change. These stone walls stood here then, and so did the low slate-roofed barns and the whitewashed cottages where the roses clamber over the doors.

I paused in front of one of these snug, homely, handsome, pretty little cottages and looked at the two exact rows of flowers that lined the little walk leading from gate to cottage-door. The pathway was made from coal-ashes and the flowerbeds were marked off with pieces of broken crockery set on edge. 'T was an absent-minded, impolite thing to do—to stand leaning on a gate and critically examine the landscape-gardening, evidently an overworked woman's gardening, at that.

As I leaned there the door opened and a little woman with sleeves rolled up appeared. I mumbled an apology, but before I could articulate it, she held out a pair of scissors and said, "Perhaps, sir, you'd like to clip some of the flowers—the roses over the door are best!"

Three children hung to her skirts, peeking, round faces from behind, and quite accidentally disclosing a very neat ankle.

I took the scissors and clipped three splendid Jacqueminots and said it was a beautiful day. She agreed with me and added that she was just finishing her churning and if I'd wait a minute until the butter came, she'd give me a drink of buttermilk.

I waited without urging and got the buttermilk, and as the children had come out from hiding I was minded to give them a penny apiece. Two coppers were all I could muster, so I gave the two boys each a penny and the little girl a shilling. The mother protested that she had no change and that a bob was too much for a little girl like that, but I assumed a Big-Bonanza air and explained that I was from California where the smallest change is a dollar.

"Go thank the gentleman, Jane."

"That's right, Jane Austen, come here and thank me!"

"How did you know her name was Jane Austen—Jane Austen Humphreys?"

"I didn't know—I only guessed."

Then little Mrs. Humphreys ceased patting the butter and told me that she named her baby girl for Jane Austen, who used to live near here a long time ago. Jane Austen was one of the greatest writers that ever lived—the Rector said so. The Reverend George Austen preached at Steventon for years and years, and I should go and see the church—the same church where he preached and where Jane Austen used to go. And anything I wanted to know about Jane Austen's books the Rector could tell, for he was a wonderful learned man was the Rector—"Kiss the gentleman, Jane."

So I kissed Jane Austen's round, rosy cheek and stroked the tousled heads of the boys by way of blessing, and started for Steventon to interview the Rector who was very wise.

And the clergyman who teaches his people the history of their neighborhood, and tells them of the excellent men and women who once lived thereabouts, is both wise and good. And the present Rector at Steventon is both—I'm sure of that.

* * * * *

It was a very happy family that lived in the Rectory at Steventon from Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five to Eighteen Hundred One. There were five boys and two girls, and the younger girl's name was Jane. Between her and James, the oldest boy, lay a period of twelve years of three hundred and sixty-five days each, not to mention leap-years.

The boys were sent away to be educated, and when they came home at holiday time they brought presents for the mother and the girls, and there was great rejoicing.

James was sent to Oxford. The girls were not sent away to be educated—it was thought hardly worth while then to educate women, and some folks still hold to that belief. When the boys came home, they were made to stand by the door-jamb, and a mark was placed on the casing, with a date, which showed how much they had grown. And they were catechized as to their knowledge, and cross-questioned and their books inspected; and so we find one of the sisters saying, once, that she knew all the things her brothers knew, and besides that she knew all the things she knew herself.

There was plenty of books in the library, and the girls made use of them. They would read to their father "because his eyesight was bad," but I can not help thinking this a clever ruse on the part of the good Rector.

I do not find that there were any secrets in that household or that either Mr. or Mrs. Austen ever said that children should be seen and not heard. It was a little republic of letters—all their own. Thrown in on themselves for not many of the yeomanry thereabouts could read, there was developed a fine spirit of comradeship among parents and children, brothers and sisters, servants and visitors, that is a joy to contemplate. Before the days of railroads, a "visitor" was more of an institution than he is now. He stayed longer and was more welcome; and the news he brought from distant parts was eagerly asked for. Nowadays we know all about everything, almost before it happens, for yellow journalism is so alert that it discounts futurity.

In the Austen household had lived and died a son of Warren Hastings. The lad had so won the love of the Austens that they even spoke of him as their own; and this bond also linked them to the great outside world of statecraft. The things the elders discussed were the properties, too, of the children.

Then once a year the Bishop came—came in knee-breeches, hobnailed shoes, and shovel hat, and the little church was decked with greens. The Bishop came from Paradise, little Jane used to think, and once, to be polite, she asked him how all the folks were in Heaven. Then the other children giggled and the Bishop spilt a whole cup of tea down the front of his best coat, and coughed and choked until he was very red in the face.

When Jane was ten years old there came to live at the Rectory a daughter of Mrs. Austen's sister. She came to them direct from France. Her name was Madame Fenillade. She was a widow and only twenty-two. Once, when little Jane overheard one of the brothers say that Monsieur Fenillade had kissed Mademoiselle Guillotine, she asked what he meant and they would not tell her.

Now Madame spoke French with grace and fluency, and the girls thought it queer that there should be two languages—English and French—so they picked up a few words of French, too, and at the table would gravely say "Merci, Papa," and "S'il vous plait, Mamma." Then Mr. Austen proposed that at table no one should speak anything but French. So Madame told them what to call the sugar and the salt and the bread, and no one called anything except by its French name. In two weeks each of the whole dozen persons who sat at that board, as well as the girl who waited on table, had a bill-of-fare working capital of French. In six months they could converse with ease.

And science with all its ingenuity has not yet pointed out a better way for acquiring a new language than the plan the Austens adopted at Steventon Rectory. We call it the "Berlitz Method" now.

Madame Fenillade's widowhood rested lightly upon her, and she became quite the life of the whole household.

One of the Austen boys fell in love with the French widow; and surely it would be a very stupid country boy that wouldn't love a French widow like that!

And they were married and lived happily ever afterward.

But before Madame married and moved away she taught the girls charades, and then little plays, and a theatrical performance was given in the barn.

Then a play could not be found that just suited, so Jane wrote one and Cassandra helped, and Madame criticized and the Reverend Mr. Austen suggested a few changes. Then it was all rewritten. And this was the first attempt at writing for the public by Jane Austen.

* * * * *

Jane Austen wrote four great novels, "Pride and Prejudice" was begun when she was twenty and finished a year later. The old father started a course of novel-reading on his own account in order to fit his mind to pass judgment on his daughter's work. He was sure it was good, but feared that love had blinded his eyes, and he wanted to make sure. After six months' comparison he wrote to a publisher explaining that he had the manuscript of a great novel that would be parted with for a consideration. He assured the publisher that the novel was as excellent as any Miss Burney, Miss Edgeworth, or any one else ever wrote.

Now publishers get letters like that by every mail, and when Mr. Austen received his reply it was so antarctic in sentiment that the manuscript was stored away in the garret, where it lay for just eleven years before it found a publisher. But in the meantime Miss Austen had written three other novels—not with much hope that any one would publish them, but to please her father and the few intimate friends who read and sighed and smiled in quiet.

The year she was thirty years of age her father died—died with no thought that the world would yet endorse his own loving estimate of his daughter's worth.

After the father's death financial troubles came, and something had to be done to fight off possible hungry wolves. The manuscript was hunted out, dusted, gone over, and submitted to publishers. They sniffed at it and sent it back. Finally a man was found who was bold enough to read. He liked it, but wouldn't admit the fact. Yet he decided to print it. He did so. The reading world liked it and said so, although not very loudly. Slowly the work made head, and small-sized London drafts were occasionally sent by publishers to Miss Austen with apologies because the amounts were not larger.

Now, in reference to writing books it may not be amiss to explain that no one ever said, "Now then, I'll write a story!" and sitting down at table took up pen and dipping it in ink, wrote. Stories don't come that way. Stories take possession of one—incident after incident—and you write in order to get rid of 'em—with a few other reasons mixed in, for motives, like silver, are always found mixed. Children play at keeping house: and men and women who have loved think of the things that have happened, then imagine all the things that might have happened, and from thinking it all over to writing it out is but a step. You begin one chapter and write it this forenoon; and do all you may to banish the plot, the next chapter is all in your head before sundown. Next morning you write chapter number two, to unload it, and so the story spins itself out into a book. All this if you live in the country and have time to think and are not broken in upon by too much work and worry—save the worry of the ever-restless mind. Whether the story is good or not depends upon what you leave out.

The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed. Really happy people do not write stories—they accumulate adipose tissue and die at the top through fatty degeneration of the cerebrum. A certain disappointment in life, a dissatisfaction with environment, is necessary to stir the imagination to a creative point. If things are all to your taste you sit back and enjoy them. You forget the flight of time, the march of the seasons, your future life, family, country—all, just as Antony did in Egypt. A deadly, languorous satisfaction comes over you. Pain, disappointment, unrest or a joy that hurts, are the things that prick the mind into activity.

Jane Austen lived in a little village. She felt the narrowness of her life—the inability of those beyond her own household to match her thoughts and emotions. Love came that way—a short heart-rest, a being understood, were hers. The gates of Paradise swung ajar and she caught a glimpse of the glories within, and sighed and clasped her hands and bowed her head in a prayer of thankfulness.

When she arose from her knees the gates were closed; the way was dark; she was alone—alone in a little quibbling, carping village, where tired folks worked and gossiped, ate, drank, slept. Her home was pleasant, to be sure, but man is a citizen of the world, not of a house.

Jane Austen began to write—to write about these village people. Jane was tall, and twenty—not very handsome, but better, she was good-looking. She looked good because she was. She was pious, but not too pious. She used to go calling among the parishioners, visiting the sick, the lowly, the troubled. Then when Great Folks came down from London to "the Hall," she went with the Rector to call on them too, for the Rector was servant to all—his business was to minister: he was a Minister. And the Reverend George Austen was a bit proud of his younger daughter. She was just as tall as he, and dignified and gentle: and the clergyman chuckled quietly to himself to see how she was the equal in grace and intellect of any Fine Lady from London town.

And although the good Rector prayed, "From all vanity and pride of spirit, good Lord, deliver us," it never occurred to him that he was vain of his tall daughter Jane, and I'm glad it didn't. There is no more crazy bumblebee gets into a mortal's bonnet than the buzzing thought that God is jealous of the affection we have for our loved ones. If we are ever damned, it will be because we have too little love for our fellows, not too much.

But, egad! brother, it's no small delight to be sixty and a little stooped and a trifle rheumatic, and have your own blessed daughter, sweet and stately, comb your thinning gray locks, help you on with your overcoat, find your cane, and go trooping with you, hand in hand, down the lane on merciful errand bent. It's a temptation to grow old and feign sciatica; and if you could only know that, some day, like old King Lear, upon your withered cheek would fall Cordelia's tears, the thought would be a solace.

So Jane Austen began to write stories about the simple folks she knew. She wrote in the family sitting-room at a little mahogany desk that she could shut up quickly if prying neighbors came in to tell their woes and ask questions about all those sheets of paper! And all she wrote she read to her father and to her sister Cassandra. And they talked it all over together and laughed and cried and joked over it. The kind old minister thought it a good mental drill for his girls to write and express their feelings. The two girls collaborated—that is to say, one wrote and the other looked on. Neither girl had been "educated," except what their father taught them. But to be born into a bookish family, and inherit the hospitable mind and the receptive heart, is better than to be sent to Harvard Annex. Preachers, like other folks, sometimes assume a virtue when they have it not. But George Austen didn't pretend—he was. And that's the better plan, for no man can deceive his children—they take his exact measurement, whether others ever do or not—and the only way to win and hold the love of a child (or a grown-up) is to be frank and simple and honest. I've tried both schemes.

I can not find that George Austen ever claimed he was only a worm of the dust, or pretended to be more or less than he was, or to assume a knowledge that he did not possess. He used to say: "My dears, I really do not know. But let's keep the windows open and light may yet come."

It was a busy family of plain, average people—not very rich, and not very poor. There were difficulties to meet, and troubles to share, and joys to divide.

Jane Austen was born in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five; "Jane Eyre" in Eighteen Hundred Sixteen—one year before Jane Austen died.

Charlotte Bronte knew all about Jane Austen, and her example fired Charlotte's ambition. Both were daughters of country clergymen. Charlotte lived in the North of England on the wild and treeless moors, where the searching winds rattled the panes and black-faced sheep bleated piteously. Jane Austen lived in the rich quiet of a prosperous farming country, where bees made honey and larks nested. The Reverend Patrick Bronte disciplined his children: George Austen loved his. In Steventon there is no "Black Bull"; only a little dehorned inn, kept by a woman who breeds canaries, and will sell you a warranted singer for five shillings, with no charge for the cage. At Steventon no red-haired Yorkshiremen offer to give fight or challenge you to a drinking-bout.

The opposites of things are alike, and that is why the world ties Jane Eyre and Jane Austen in one bundle. Their methods of work were totally different: their effects gotten in different ways. Charlotte Bronte fascinates by startling situations and highly colored lights that dance and glow, leading you on in a mad chase. There's pain, unrest, tragedy in the air. The pulse always is rapid and the temperature high.

It is not so with Jane Austen. She is an artist in her gentleness, and the world is today recognizing this more and more. The stage now works its spells by her methods—without rant, cant or fustian—and as the years go by this must be so more and more, for mankind's face is turned toward truth.

To weave your spell out of commonplace events and brew a love-potion from every-day materials is high art. When Kipling takes three average soldiers of the line, ignorant, lying, swearing, smoking, dog-fighting soldiers, who can even run on occasion, and by telling of them holds a world in thrall—that's art! In these soldiers three we recognize something very much akin to ourselves, for the thing that holds no relationship to us does not interest us—we can not leave the personal equation out. This fact is made plain in "The Black Riders," where the devils dancing in Tophet look up and espying Steve Crane address him thus: "Brother!"

Jane Austen's characters are all plain, every-day folks. The work is always quiet. There are no entangling situations, no mysteries, no surprises.

Now, to present a situation, an emotion, so it will catch and hold the attention of others, is largely a knack—you practise on the thing until you do it well. This one thing I do. But the man who does this thing is not intrinsically any greater than those who appreciate it—in fact, they are all made of the same kind of stuff. Kipling himself is quite a commonplace person. He is neither handsome nor magnetic. He is plain and manly and would fit in anywhere. If there was a trunk to be carried upstairs, or an ox to get out of a pit, you'd call on Kipling if he chanced that way, and he'd give you a lift as a matter of course, and then go on whistling with hands in his pockets. His art is a knack practised to a point that gives facility.

Jane Austen was a commonplace person. She swept, sewed, worked, and did the duty that lay nearest her. She wrote because she liked to, and because it gave pleasure to others. She wrote as well as she could. She had no thought of immortality, or that she was writing for the ages—no more than Shakespeare had. She never anticipated that Southey, Coleridge, Lamb, Guizot and Macaulay would hail her as a marvel of insight, nor did she suspect that a woman as great as George Eliot would declare her work flawless.

But today strong men recognize her books as rarely excellent, because they show the divinity in all things, keep close to the ground, gently inculcate the firm belief that simple people are as necessary as great ones, that small things are not necessarily unimportant, and that nothing is really insignificant. It all rings true.

And so I sing the praises of the average woman—the woman who does her work, who is willing to be unknown, who is modest and unaffected, who tries to lessen the pains of earth, and to add to its happiness. She is the true guardian angel of mankind!

No book published in Jane Austen's lifetime bore her name on the title-page; she was never lionized by society; she was never two hundred miles from home; she died when forty-two years of age, and it was sixty years before a biography was attempted or asked for. She sleeps in the cathedral at Winchester, and not so very long ago a visitor, on asking the verger to see her grave, was conducted thither, and the verger asked: "Was she anybody in particular? So many folks ask where she's buried, you know!"

But this is changed now, for when the verger took me to her grave and we stood by that plain black marble slab, he spoke intelligently of her life and work. And many visitors now go to the cathedral, only because it is the resting-place of Jane Austen, who lived a beautiful, helpful life and produced great art, yet knew it not.



EMPRESS JOSEPHINE

You have met General Bonaparte in my house. Well—he it is who would supply a father's place to the orphans of Alexander de Beauharnais, and a husband's to his widow. I admire the General's courage, the extent of his information, for on all subjects he talks equally well, and the quickness of his judgment, which enables him to seize the thoughts of others almost before they are expressed; but, I confess it, I shrink from the despotism he seems desirous of exercising over all who approach him. His searching glance has something singular and inexplicable, which imposes even on our Directors; judge if it may not intimidate a woman. Even—what ought to please me—the force of a passion, described with an energy that leaves not a doubt of his sincerity, is precisely the cause which arrests the consent I am often on the point of pronouncing. —Letters of Josephine



It was a great life, dearie, a great life! Charles Lamb used to study mathematics to subdue his genius, and I'll have to tinge truth with gray in order to keep this little sketch from appearing like a red Ruritania romance.

Josephine was born on an island in the Caribbean Sea, a long way from France. The Little Man was an islander, too. They started for France about the same time, from different directions—each, of course, totally unaware that the other lived. They started on the order of that joker, Fate, in order to scramble Continental politics, and make omelet of the world's pretensions.

Josephine's father was Captain Tascher. Do you know who Captain Tascher was? Very well, there is satisfaction then in knowing that no one else does either. He seems to have had no ancestors; and he left no successor save Josephine.

We know a little less of Josephine's mother than we do of her father. She was the daughter of a Frenchman whom the world had plucked of both money and courage, and he moved to the West Indies to vegetate and brood on the vanity of earthly ambitions. Young Captain Tascher married the planter's daughter in the year Seventeen Hundred Sixty-two. The next year a daughter was born, and they called her name Josephine.

Not long after her birth, Captain Tascher thought to mend his prospects by moving to one of the neighboring islands. His wife went with him, but they left the baby girl in the hands of a good old aunt, until they could corral fortune and make things secure, for this world at least.

They never came back, for they died and were buried.

Josephine never had any recollection of her parents. But the aunt was gentle and kindly, and life was simple and cheap. There was plenty to eat, and no clothing to speak of was required, for the Equator was only a stone's throw away; in fact, it was in sight of the house, as Josephine herself has said.

There was a Catholic church near, but no school. Yet Josephine learned to read and write. She sang with the negroes and danced and swam and played leap-frog. When she was nine years old, her aunt told her she must not play leap-frog any more, but she should learn to embroider and to play the harp and read poetry. Then she would grow up and be a fine lady.

And Josephine thought it a bit hard, but said she would try.

She was tall and slender, but not very handsome. Her complexion was rather yellow, her hands bony. But the years brought grace, and even if her features were not pretty she had one thing that was better, a gentle voice. So far as I know, no one ever gave her lessons in voice culture either. Perhaps the voice is the true index of the soul. Josephine's voice was low, sweet, and so finely modulated that when she spoke others would pause to listen—not to the words, just to the voice.

Occasionally, visitors came to the island and were received at the old rambling mansion where Josephine's aunt lived. From them the girl learned about the great, outside world with its politics and society and strife and rivalry; and when the visitor went away Josephine had gotten from him all he knew. So the young woman became wise without school and learned without books. A year after the memorable year of Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six, there came to the island, Vicomte Alexander Beauharnais. He had come direct from America, where he had fought on the side of the Colonies against the British. He was full of Republican principles. Paradoxically, he was also rich and idle and somewhat of an adventurer.

He called at the old aunt's, Madame Renaudin's, and called often. He fell violently in love with Josephine. I say violently, for that was the kind of man he was. He was thirty, she was fifteen. His voice was rough and guttural, so I do not think he had much inward grace. Josephine's fine instincts rebelled at thought of accepting his proffered affection. She explained that she was betrothed to another, a neighboring youth of about her own age, whose thoughts and feelings matched hers.

Beauharnais said that was nothing to him, and appealed to the old folks, displaying his title, submitting an inventory of his estate; and the old folks agreed to look into the matter. They did so and explained to Josephine that she should not longer hold out against the wishes of those who had done so much for her.

And so Josephine relented and they were married, although it can not truthfully be said that they lived happily ever afterward. They started for France, on their wedding-tour. In six weeks they arrived in Paris. Returned soldiers and famed travelers are eagerly welcomed by society; especially is this so when the traveler brings a Creole wife from the Equator. The couple supplied a new thrill, and society in Paris is always eager for a new thrill.

Vicomte Beauharnais and his wife became quite the rage. It was expected that the Creole lady would be beautiful but dull; instead, she was not so very beautiful, but very clever. She dropped into all the graceful ways of polite society intuitively.

In a year, domestic life slightly interfered with society's claims—a son was born. They called his name Eugene.

Two more years and a daughter was born. They called her name Hortense.

Josephine was only twenty, but the tropics and social experience and maternity had given ripeness to her life. She became thoughtful and inclined rather to stay at home with her babies than chase fashion's butterflies.

Beauharnais chased fashion's butterflies, and caught them, too, for he came home late and quarreled with his wife—a sure sign.

He drank a little, gamed more, sought excitement, and talked politics needlessly loud in underground cafes.

Men who are woefully lax in their marriage relations are very apt to regard their wives with suspicion. If Beauharnais had been weighed in the balances he would have been found wanton. He instituted proceedings against Josephine for divorce.

And Josephine packed up a few scanty effects and taking her two children started for her old home in the West Indies. It took all the money she had to pay passage.

It was the old, old story—a few years of gay life in the great city, then cruelty too great for endurance, tears, shut white lips, a firm resolve—and back to the old farm where homely, loyal hearts await, and outstretched arms welcome the sorrowful, yet glad return.

Beauharnais failed to get his divorce. The court said "no cause for action." He awoke, stared stupidly about, felt the need of sympathy in his hour of undoing, and looked for—Josephine.

She was gone.

He tried absinthe, gambling, hot dissipation; but he could not forget. He had sent away his granary and storehouse; his wand of wealth and heart's desire. Two ways opened for peace, only two: a loaded pistol—or get her back.

First he would try to get her back, and the pistol should be held in reserve in case of failure.

Josephine forgave and came back; for a good woman forgives to seventy times seven.

Beauharnais met her with all the tenderness a lover could command. The ceremony of marriage was again sacredly solemnized. They retired to the country and with their two children lived three of the happiest months Josephine ever knew; at least Josephine said so, and the fact that she made the same remark about several other occasions is no reason for doubting her sincerity. Then they moved back to Paris.

Beauharnais sobered his ambitions, and kept good hours. He was a soldier in the employ of the king, but his sympathies were with the people. He was a Republican with a Royalist bias, but some said he was a Royalist with a Republican bias.

Josephine looked after her household, educated her children, did much charitable work, and knew what was going on in the State.

But those were troublous times. Murder was in the air and revolution was rife. That mob of a hundred thousand women had tramped out to Versailles and brought the king back to Paris. He had been beheaded, and Marie Antoinette had followed him. The people were in power and Beauharnais had labored to temper their wrath with reason. He had even been Chairman of the Third Convention. He called himself Citizen. But the fact that he was of noble birth was remembered, and in September of Seventeen Hundred Ninety-three, three men called at his house. When Josephine looked out of the window, she saw by the wan light of the moon a file of soldiers standing stiff and motionless.

She knew the time had come. They marched Citizen Beauharnais to the Luxembourg.

In a few feverish months, they came back for his wife. Her they placed in the nunnery of the Carmelites—that prison where, but a few months before, a mob relieved the keepers of their vigils by killing all their charges.

Robespierre was supreme. Now, Robespierre had come into power by undoing Danton. Danton had helped lug in the Revolution, but when he touched a match to the hay he did not really mean to start a conflagration, only a bonfire.

He tried to dampen the blaze, and Robespierre said he was a traitor and led him to the guillotine. Robespierre worked the guillotine until the bearings grew hot. Still, the people who rode in the death-tumbrel did not seem so very miserable. Despair pushed far enough completes the circle and becomes peace—a peace like unto security. It is the last stage: hope is gone, but the comforting thought of heroic death and an eternal sleep takes its place.

When Josephine at the nunnery of the Carmelites received from the Luxembourg prison a package containing a generous lock of her husband's hair, she knew it had been purchased from the executioner.

Now the prison of the Carmelites was unfortunately rather crowded. In fact, it was full to the roof-tile. Five ladies were obliged to occupy one little cell. One of these ladies in the cell with Josephine was Madame Fontenay. Now Madame Fontenay was fondly loved by Citizen Tallien, who was a member of the Assembly over which Citizen Robespierre presided. Citizen Tallien did not explain his love for Madame to the public, because Madame chanced to be the wife of another. So how could Robespierre know that when he imprisoned Madame he was touching the tenderest tie that bound his friend Tallien to earth?

Robespierre sent word to the prison of the Carmelites that Madame Fontenay and Madame Beauharnais should prepare for death—they were guilty of plotting against the people.

Now, Tallien came daily to the prison of the Carmelites, not to visit of course, but to see that the prisoners were properly restrained. A cabbage-stalk was thrown out of a cell-window, and Tallien found in the stalk a note from his ladylove to this effect: "I am to die in two days; to save me you must overthrow Robespierre."

The next day there was trouble when the Convention met. Tallien got the platform and denounced Robespierre in a Cassius voice as a traitor—the arch-enemy of the people—a plotter for self. To emphasize his remarks he brandished a glittering dagger. Other orations followed in like vein. All orders that Robespierre had given out were abrogated by acclamation. Two days and Robespierre was made to take a dose of the medicine he had so often prescribed for others. He was beheaded by Samson, his own servant, July Fifteenth, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-four.

Immediately all "suspects" imprisoned on his instigation were released.

Madame Fontenay and the widow Beauharnais were free. Soon after this Madame Fontenay became Madame Tallien. Josephine got her children back from the country, but her property was gone and she was in sore straits. But she had friends, yet none so loyal and helpful as Citizen Tallien and his wife. Their home was hers. And it was there she met a man by the name of Barras, and there too she met a man who was a friend of Barras; by name, Bonaparte—Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte was twenty-six. He was five feet two inches high and weighed one hundred twenty pounds. He was beardless and looked like a boy, and at that time his face was illumined by an eruption.

Out of employment and waiting for something to turn up, he yet had a very self-satisfied manner.

His peculiar way of listening to conversation—absorbing everything and giving nothing out—made one uncomfortable. Josephine, seven years his senior, did not like the youth. She had had a wider experience and been better brought up than he, and she let him know it, but he did not seem especially abashed.

* * * * *

Exactly what the French Revolution was, no one has yet told us. Read "Carlyle" backward or forward and it is grand: it puts your head in a whirl of heroic intoxication, but it does not explain the Revolution.

Suspicion, hate, tyranny, fear, mawkish sentimentality, mad desire, were in the air. One leader was deposed because he did nothing, and his successor was carried to the guillotine because he did too much. Convention after convention was dissolved and re-formed.

On the Fourth of October, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five, there was a howl and a roar and a shriek from forty thousand citizens of Paris.

No one knew just what they wanted—the forty thousand did not explain. Perhaps it was nothing—only the leaders who wanted power. They demanded that the Convention should be dissolved: certain men must be put out and others put in.

The Convention convened and all the members felt to see if their heads were in proper place—tomorrow they might not be. The room was crowded to suffocation. Spectators filled the windows, perched on the gallery-railing, climbed and clung on the projecting parts of columns.

High up on one of these columns sat the young man Bonaparte, silent, unmoved, still waiting for something to turn up.

The Convention must protect itself, and the call was for Barras. Barras had once successfully parleyed with insurrection—he must do so again. Barras turned bluish-white, for he knew that to deal with this mob successfully a man must be blind and deaf to pity. He struggled to his feet—he looked about helplessly—the Convention silently waited to catch the words of its savior.

High up on a column Barras spied the lithe form of the artillery major, whom he had seen, with face of bronze, deal out grape and canister at Toulon. Barras raised his hand and pointing to the young officer cried, "There, there is the man who can save you!"

The Convention nominated the little man by acclamation as commander of the city's forces. He slid down from his perch, took half an hour to ascertain whether the soldiers were on the side of the mob or against it—for it was usually a toss-up—and decided to accept the command. Next day the mob surrounded the Tuileries in the name of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. The Terrorists entreated the soldiers to throw down their arms, then they reviled and cajoled and cursed and sang, and the women as usual were in the vanguard. Paris recognized the divine right of insurrection. Who dare shoot into such a throng!

The young artillery major dare. He gave the word and red death mowed wide swaths, and the balls spat against the walls and sang through the windows of the Church of Saint Roche where the mob was centered. Again and again he fired. It began at four by the clock, and at six all good people, and bad, had retired to their homes, and Paris was law-abiding. The Convention named Napoleon, General of the Interior, and the French Revolution became from that moment a thing that was.

* * * * *

Of course, no one in Paris was so much talked of as the young artillery officer. Josephine was a bit proud that she had met him, and possibly a little sorry that she had treated him so coldly. He only wished to be polite!

Josephine was an honest woman, but still, she was a woman. She desired to be well thought of, and to be well thought of by men in power. Her son Eugene was fifteen, and she had ambitions for him; and to this end she saw the need of keeping in touch with the Powers. Josephine was a politician and a diplomat, for all women are diplomats. She arrayed Eugene in his Sunday-best and told him to go to the General of the Interior and explain that his name was Eugene Beauharnais, that his father was the martyred patriot, General Beauharnais, and that this beloved father's sword was in the archives over which Providence had placed the General of the Interior. Furthermore, the son should request that the sword of his father be given him so that it might be used in defense of France if need be.

And it was so done.

The whole thing was needlessly melodramatic, and Napoleon laughed. The poetry of war was to him a joke. But he stroked the youth's curls, asked after his mother, and ordered his secretary to go fetch that sword.

So the boy carried the sword home and was very happy, and his mother was very happy and proud of him, and she kissed him on both cheeks and kissed the sword and thought of the erring, yet generous man who once had carried it. Then she thought it would be but proper for her to go and thank the man who had given the sword back; for had he not stroked her boy's curls and told him he was a fine young fellow, and asked after his mother!

So the next day she went to call on the man who had so graciously given the sword back. She was kept waiting a little while in the anteroom, for Napoleon always kept people waiting—it was a good scheme. When admitted to the presence, the General of the Interior, in simple corporal's dress, did not remember her. Neither did he remember about giving the sword back—at least he said so. He was always a trifler with women, though; and it was so delicious to have this tearful widow remove her veil and explain—for gadzooks! had she not several times allowed the mercury to drop to zero for his benefit?

And so she explained, and gradually it all came back to him—very slowly and after cross-questioning—and then he was so glad to see her. When she went away, he accompanied her to the outer door, bareheaded, and as they walked down the long hallway she noted the fact that he was not so tall as she by three inches. He shook hands with her as they parted, and said he would call on her when he had gotten a bit over the rush.

Josephine went home in a glow. She did not like the man—he had humiliated her by making her explain who she was, and his manner, too, was offensively familiar. And yet he was a power, there was no denying that, and to know men of power is a satisfaction to any woman. He was twenty years younger than Beauharnais, the mourned—twenty years! Then Beauharnais was tall and had a splendid beard and wore a dangling sword. Beauharnais was of noble birth, educated, experienced, but he was dead; and here was a beardless boy being called the Chief Citizen of France. Well, well, well!

She was both pleased and hurt—hurt to think she had been humbled, and pleased to think such attentions had been paid her. In a few days the young general called on the widow to crave forgiveness for not having recognized her when she had called on him. It was very stupid in him, very! She forgave him.

He complimented Eugene in terse, lavish terms, and when he went away kissed Hortense, who was thirteen and thought herself too big to be kissed by a strange man. But Napoleon said they all seemed just like old friends. And seeming like old friends he called often.

Josephine knew Paris and Parisian society thoroughly. Fifteen years of close contact in success and defeat with statesmen, soldiers, diplomats, artists and literati had taught her much. It is probable that she was the most gifted woman in Paris. Now, Napoleon learned by induction as Josephine had, and as all women do, and as genius must, for life is short—only dullards spend eight years at Oxford. He absorbed Josephine as the devilfish does its prey. And to get every thought and feeling that a good woman possesses you must win her completest love. In this close contact she gives up all—unlike Sapphira—holding nothing back.

Among educated people, people of breeding and culture, Napoleon felt ill at ease. With this woman at his side he would be at home anywhere. And feeling at once that he could win her only by honorable marriage he decided to marry her.

He was ambitious. Has that been remarked before? Well, one can not always be original—still I think the facts bear out the statement.

Josephine was ambitious, too, but some way in this partnership she felt that she would bring more capital into the concern than he, and she hesitated.

But power had given dignity to the Little Man; his face had taken on the cold beauty of marble. Success was better than sarsaparilla. Josephine was aware of his growing power, and his persistency was irresistible; and so one evening when he dropped in for a moment, her manner told all. He just took her in his arms, and kissing her very tenderly whispered, "My dear, together we will win," and went his way. When he wished to be, Napoleon was the ideal lover; he was master of that fine forbearance, flavored with a dash of audacity, that women so appreciate. He never wore love to a frazzle, nor caressed the object of his affections into fidgets; neither did he let her starve, although at times she might go hungry.

However, the fact remains that Josephine married the man to get rid of him; but that's a thing women are constantly doing.

The ceremony was performed by a Justice of the Peace, March Ninth, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-six. It was just five months since the bride had called to thank the groom for giving back her husband's sword, and fifteen months after this husband's death. Napoleon was twenty-seven; Josephine was thirty-three, but the bridegroom swore he was twenty-eight and the lady twenty-nine. As a fabricator he wins our admiration.

Twelve days after the marriage, Napoleon set out for Italy as Commander-in-Chief of the army. To trace the brilliant campaign of that year, when the tricolor of France was carried from the Bay of Biscay to the Adriatic Sea, is not my business. Suffice it to say that it placed the name of Bonaparte among the foremost names of military leaders of all time. But amid the restless movement of grim war and the glamour of success he never for a day forgot his Josephine. His letters breathe a youthful lover's affection, and all the fond desires of his heart were hers. Through her he also knew the pulse and temperature of Paris—its form and pressure.

It was a year before they saw each other. She came on to Milan and met him there. They settled in Montebello, at a beautiful country seat, six miles from the city. From there he conducted negotiations for peace—and she presided over the gay social circles of the ancient capital. "I gain provinces; you win hearts," said Napoleon. It was a very Napoleonic remark.

Napoleon had already had Eugene with him, and together they had seen the glory of battle. Now Hortense was sent for, and they were made Napoleon's children by adoption. These were days of glowing sunshine and success and warm affection.

And so Napoleon with his family returned to France amid bursts of applause, proclaimed everywhere the Savior of the State, its Protector, and all that. Civil troubles had all vanished in the smoke of war with foreign enemies. Prosperity was everywhere, the fruits of conquest had satisfied all, and the discontented class had been drawn off into the army and killed or else was now cheerfully boozy with success.

Napoleon made allies of all powers he could not easily undo, and proffered his support—biding his time. Across the English Channel he looked and stared with envious eyes. Josephine had tasted success and known defeat. Napoleon had only tasted success. She begged that he would rest content and hold secure that which he had gained. Success in its very nature must be limited, she said. He laughed and would not hear of it. For the first time she felt her influence over him was waning. She had given her all; he greedily absorbed, and now had come to believe in his own omniscience. He told her that on a pinch he could get along without her—within himself he held all power. Then he kissed her hand in mock gallantry and led her to the door, as he would be alone.

When Napoleon started on the Egyptian campaign, Josephine begged to go with him; other women went, dozens of them. They seemed to look upon it as a picnic party. But Napoleon, insisting that absence makes the heart grow fonder, said his wife should remain behind.

Josephine was too good and great for the wife of such a man. She saw through him. She understood him, and only honest men are willing to be understood. He was tired of her, for she no longer ministered to his vanity. He had captured her, and now he was done with her. Besides that, she sided with the peace party, and this was intolerable. Still he did not beat her with a stick; he treated her most graciously, and installing her at beautiful Malmaison, provided her everything to make her happy. And if "things" could make one happy, she would have been.

And as for the Egyptian campaign, it surely was a picnic party, or it was until things got so serious that frolic was supplanted by fear. You can't frolic with your hair on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine. Napoleon did not write to his wife. He frolicked. Occasionally his secretary sent her a formal letter of instruction, and when she at last wrote him asking an explanation for such strange silence, the Little Man answered her with accusations of infidelity.

Josephine decided to secure a divorce, and there is pretty good proof that papers were prepared; and had the affair been carried along, the courts would have at once allowed the separation on statutory grounds. However, the papers were destroyed, and Josephine decided to live it out. But Napoleon had heard of these proposed divorce proceedings and was furious. When he came back, it was with the intention of immediate legal separation—in any event separation.

He came back and held out haughtily for three days, addressing her as "Madame," and refusing so much as to shake hands. After the three days he sued for peace and cried it out on his knees with his head in her lap. It was not genuine humility, only the humility that follows debauch. Napoleon had many kind impulses, but his mood was selfish indifference to the rights or wishes of others. He did not hold hate, yet the thought of divorce from Josephine was palliated in his own mind by the thought that she had first suggested it. "I took her at her word," he once said to Bertram, as if the thing were pricking him.

And so matters moved on. There was war, and rumors of war, alway; but the vanquished paid the expenses. It was thought best that France should be ruled by three consuls. Three men were elected, with Napoleon as First Consul. The First Consul bought off the Second and Third Consuls and replaced them with two wooden men from the Tenth Ward.

Josephine worked for the glory of France and for her husband: she was diplomat and adviser. She placated enemies and made friends.

France prospered, and in the wars the foreigner usually not only paid the bills, but a goodly tribute beside. Nothing is so good as war to make peace at home. An insurrectionist at home makes a splendid soldier abroad. Napoleon's battles were won by the "dangerous class." As the First Consul was Emperor in fact, the wires were pulled, and he was made so in name. His wife was made Empress: it must be so, as a breath of disapproval might ruin the whole scheme. Josephine was beloved by the people, and the people must know that she was honored by her husband. With a woman's intuition, Josephine saw the end—power grows until it topples. She pleaded, begged—it was of no avail—the tide swept her with it, but whither, whither? she kept asking.

Meantime Hortense had been married to Louis, brother of Napoleon. In due time Napoleon found himself a grandfather. He both liked it and didn't. He considered himself a youth and took a pride in being occasionally mistaken for a recruit, and here some newspaper had called him "granddaddy," and people had laughed! He was not even a father, except by law—not Nature—and that's no father at all, for Nature does not recognize law. He joked with Josephine about it, and she turned pale.

There is no subject on which men so deceive themselves as concerning their motives for doing certain things. On no subject do mortals so deceive themselves as their motives for marriage. Their acts may be all right, but the reasons they give for doing them never are. Napoleon desired a new wife, because he wished a son to found a dynasty.

"You have Eugene!" said Josephine.

"He's my son by proxy," said Napoleon, with a weary smile.

All motives, like ores, are found mixed, and counting the whole at one hundred, Napoleon's desire for a son after the flesh should stand as ten—other reasons ninety. All men wish to be thought young. Napoleon was forty, and his wife was forty-seven. Talleyrand had spoken of them as Old Mr. and Mrs. Bonaparte.

A man of forty is only a giddy youth, according to his own estimate. Girls of twenty are his playfellows. A man of sixty, with a wife forty, and babies coming, is not old—bless me! But suppose his wife is nearly seventy—what then! Napoleon must have a young wife. Then by marrying Marie Louise, Austria could be held as friend: it was very necessary to do this. Austria must be secured as an ally at any cost—even at the cost of Josephine. It was painful, but must be done for the good of France. The State should stand first in the mind of every loyal, honest man: all else is secondary.

So Josephine was divorced, but was provided with an annuity that was preposterous in its lavish proportions. It amounted to over half a million dollars a year. I once knew a man who, on getting home from the club at two o'clock in the morning, was reproached by his wife for his shocking condition. He promptly threw the lady over the banisters. Next day he purchased her a diamond necklace at the cost of a year's salary, but she could not wear it out in society for a month on account of her black eye.

Napoleon divorced Josephine that he might be the father of a line of kings. When he abdicated in Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, he declared his son, the child of Marie Louise, "Napoleon the Second, Emperor of France," and the world laughed. The son died before he had fairly reached manhood's estate. Napoleon the Third, son of Hortense, Queen of Holland, the grandson of Josephine, reigned long and well as Emperor of France. The Prince Imperial—a noble youth—great-grandson of Josephine, was killed in Africa while fighting the battle of the nation that undid Napoleon.

Josephine was a parent of kings: Napoleon was not.

When Bonaparte was banished to Elba, and Marie Louise was nowhere to be seen, Josephine wrote to him words of consolation, offering to share his exile.

She died not long after—on the Second of June, Eighteen Hundred Fourteen.

After viewing that gaudy tomb at the Invalides, and thinking of the treasure in tears and broken hearts that it took to build it, it will rest you to go to the simple village church at Ruel, a half-hour's ride from the Arc de Triomphe, where sleeps Josephine, Empress of France.



MARY W. SHELLEY

Shelley, beloved! the year has a new name from any thou knowest. When Spring arrives, leaves that you never saw will shadow the ground, and flowers you never beheld will star it, and the grass will be of another growth. Thy name is added to the list which makes the earth bold in her age, and proud of what has been. Time, with slow, but unwearied feet, guides her to the goal that thou hast reached; and I, her unhappy child, am advanced still nearer the hour when my earthly dress shall repose near thine, beneath the tomb of Cestius. —Journal of Mary Shelley



When Emerson borrowed from Wordsworth that fine phrase about plain living and high thinking, no one was more astonished than he that Whitman and Thoreau should take him at his word. He was decidedly curious about their experiment. But he kept a safe distance between himself and the shirt-sleeved Walt; and as for Henry Thoreau—bless me! Emerson regarded him only as a fine savage, and told him so. Of course, Emerson loved solitude, but it was the solitude of a library or an orchard, and not the solitude of plain or wilderness. Emerson looked upon Beautiful Truth as an honored guest. He adored her, but it was with the adoration of the intellect. He never got her tag in jolly chase of comradery; nor did he converse with her, soft and low, when only the moon peeked out from behind the silvery clouds, and the nightingale listened. He never laid himself open to damages. And when he threw a bit of a bomb into Harvard Divinity School it was the shrewdest bid for fame that ever preacher made.

I said "shrewd"—that's the word.

Emerson had the instincts of Connecticut—that peculiar development of men who have eked out existence on a rocky soil, banking their houses against grim Winter or grimmer savage foes. With this Yankee shrewdness went a subtle and sweeping imagination, and a fine appreciation of the excellent things that men have said and done. But he was never so foolish as to imitate the heroic—he, simply admired it from afar. He advised others to work their poetry up into life, but he did not do so himself. He never cast the bantling on the rocks, nor caused him to be suckled with the she-wolf's teat. He admired "abolition" from a distance. When he went away from home it was always with a return ticket. He has summed up Friendship in an essay as no other man ever has, and yet there was a self-protective aloofness in his friendship that made icicles gather, as George William Curtis has explained.

In no relation of his life was there a complete abandon. His "Essay on Self-Reliance" is beef, iron and wine, and "Works and Days" is a tonic for tired men; and yet I know that, in spite of all his pretty talk about living near Nature's heart, he never ventured into the woods outside of hallooing distance from the house. He could neither ride a horse, shoot, nor sail a boat—and being well aware of it, never tried. All his farming was done by proxy; and when he writes to Carlyle late in life, explaining how he is worth forty thousand dollars, well secured by first mortgages, he makes clear one-half of his ambition.

And yet, I call him master, and will match my admiration for him 'gainst that of any other, six nights and days together. But I summon him here only to contrast his character with that of another—another who, like himself, was twice married.

In his "Essay on Love" Emerson reveals just an average sophomore insight; and in his work I do not find a mention or a trace of influence exercised by either of the two women he wedded, nor by any other woman. Shelley was what he was through the influence of the two women he married.

Shelley wrecked the life of one of these women. She found surcease of sorrow in death; and when her body was found in the Serpentine he had a premonition that the hungry waves were waiting for him, too. But before her death and through her death, she pressed home to him the bitterest sorrow that man can ever know: the combined knowledge that he has mortally injured a human soul and the sense of helplessness to minister to its needs. Harriet Westbrook said to Shelley, drink ye all of it. And could he speak now he would say that the bitterness of the potion was a formative influence as potent as that of the gentle ministrations of Mary Wollstonecraft, who broke over his head the precious vase of her heart's love and wiped his feet with the hairs of her head.

In the poetic sweetness, gentleness, lovableness and beauty of their natures, Emerson and Shelley were very similar. In a like environment they would have done the same things. A pioneer ancestry with its struggle for material existence would have given Shelley caution; and a noble patronymic, fostered by the State, lax in its discipline, would have made Emerson toss discretion to the winds.

Emerson and Shelley were both apostles of the good, the true and the beautiful. One of them rests at Sleepy Hollow, his grave marked by a great rough-hewn boulder, while overhead the winds sigh a requiem through the pines. The ashes of the other were laid beneath the moss-grown wall of the Eternal City, and the creeping vines and flowers, as if jealous of the white, carven marble, snuggle close over the spot with their leaves and petals.

Yet both of these men achieved immortality, for their thoughts live again in the thoughts of the race, and their hopes and their aspirations mingle and are one with the men and women of earth who think and feel and dream.

* * * * *

It was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin who awoke in Shelley such a burst of song that men yet listen to its cadence. It was she who gave his soul wings: her gentle spirit blending with his made music that has enriched the world. Without her he was fast beating out his life against the bars of unkind condition, but together they worked and sang. All his lines were recited to her, all were weighed in the critical balances of her woman's judgment. She it was who first wrote it out, and then gave it back. Together they revised; and after he had passed on, she it was who collected the scattered leaves, added the final word, and gave us the book we call "Shelley's Poems." Perhaps we might call all poetry the child of parents, but with Shelley's poems this is literally true. Mary Shelley delighted in the name Wollstonecraft. It was her mother's name; and was not Mary Wollstonecraft the foremost intellectual woman of her day—a woman of purpose, forceful yet gentle, appreciative, kind?

Mary Wollstonecraft was born in Seventeen Hundred Fifty-nine; and tiring of the dull monotony of a country town went up to London when yet a child and fought the world alone. By her own efforts she grew learned; she had all science, all philosophy, all history at her fingers' ends. She became able to speak several languages, and by her pen an income was secured that was not only sufficient for herself, but ministered to the needs of an aged father and mother and sisters as well.

Mary Wollstonecraft wrote one great book (which is all any one can write): "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." It sums up all that has since been written on the subject. Like an essay by Herbert Spencer, it views the matter from every side, anticipates every objection—exhausts the subject. The literary style of Mary Wollstonecraft's book is Johnsonese, but its thought forms the base of all that has come after. It is the great-great-grandmother of all woman's clubs and these thousand efforts that women are now putting forth along economic, artistic and social lines. But we have nearly lost sight of Mary Wollstonecraft. Can you name me, please, your father's grandmother? Aye, I thought not; then tell me the name of the man who is now Treasurer of the United States!

And so you see we do not know much about other people, after all. But Mary Wollstonecraft pushed the question of woman's freedom to its farthest limit; I told you that she exhausted the subject. She prophesied a day when woman would have economic freedom—that is, be allowed to work at any craft or trade for which her genius fitted her and receive a proper recompense. Woman would also have social freedom: the right to come and go alone—the privilege of walking upon the street without the company of a man—the right to study and observe. Next, woman would have political freedom: the right to record her choice in matters of lawmaking. And last, she would yet have sex freedom: the right to bestow her love without prying police and blundering law interfering in the delicate relations of married life.

To make herself understood. Mary Wollstonecraft explained that society was tainted with the thought that sex was unclean; but she held high the ideal that this would yet pass away, and that the idea of holding one's mate by statute law would become abhorrent to all good men and women. She declared that the assumption that law could join a man and a woman in holy wedlock was preposterous, and that the caging of one person by another for a lifetime was essentially barbaric. Only the love that is free and spontaneous and that holds its own by the purity, the sweetness, the tenderness and the gentleness of its life is divine. And further, she declared it her belief that when a man had found his true mate such a union would be for life—it could not be otherwise. And the man holding his mate by the excellence that was in him, instead of by the aid of the law, would be placed, loverlike, on his good behavior, and be a stronger and manlier being. Such a union, freed from the petty, spying and tyrannical restraints of present usage, must come ere the race could far advance.

Mary Wollstonecraft's book created a sensation. It was widely read and hotly denounced. A few upheld it: among these was William Godwin. But the air was so full of taunt and threat that Miss Wollstonecraft thought best to leave England for a time. She journeyed to Paris, and there wrote and translated for certain English publishers. In Paris she met Gilbert Imlay, an American, seemingly of very much the same temperament as herself. She was thirty-six, he was somewhat younger. They began housekeeping on the ideal basis. In a year a daughter was born to them. When this baby was three months old, Imlay disappeared, leaving Mary penniless and friendless.

It was a terrible blow to this trusting and gentle woman. But after a good cry or two, philosophy came to her rescue and she decided that to be deserted by a man who did not love her was really not so bad as to be tied to him for life. She earned a little money and in a short time started back for England with her babe and scanty luggage—sorrowful, yet brave and unsubdued. She might have left her babe behind, but she scorned the thought. She would be honest and conceal nothing. Right must win.

Now, I am told that an unmarried woman with a babe at her breast is not received in England into the best society. The tale of Mary's misfortune had preceded her, and literary London laughed a hoarse, guttural guffaw, and society tittered to think how this woman who had written so smartly had tried some of her own medicine and found it bitter. Publishers no longer wanted her work, old friends failed to recognize her, and one man to whom she applied for work brought a rebuke upon his head, that lasted him for years.

Godwin, philosopher, idealist, enthusiast and reformer, who made it his rule to seek out those in trouble, found her and told a needless lie by declaring he had been commissioned by a certain nameless publisher to get her to write certain articles about this and that. Then he emptied his pockets of all the small change he had, as an advance payment, and he hadn't very much, and started out to find the publisher who would buy the prospective "hot stuff." Fortunately he succeeded.

After a few weeks, Mr. Godwin, bachelor, aged forty, found himself very much in love with Mary Wollstonecraft and her baby. Her absolute purity of purpose, her frankness, honesty and high ideals surpassed anything he had ever dreamed of finding incarnated in woman. He became her sincere lover; and she, the discarded, the forsaken, reciprocated; for it seems that the tendrils of affection, ruthlessly uprooted, cling to the first object that presents itself.

And so they were married; yes, these two who had so generously repudiated the marriage-tie were married March Twenty-ninth, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-seven, at Old Saint Pancras Church, for they had come to the sane conclusion that to affront society was not wise.

On August Thirtieth, in the year Seventeen Hundred Ninety-seven, was born to them a daughter. Then the mother died—died did brave Mary Wollstonecraft, and left behind a girl baby one week old. And it was this baby, grown to womanhood, who became Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

* * * * *

William Godwin wrote one great book: "Political Justice." It is a work so high and noble in its outlook that only a Utopia could ever realize its ideals. When men are everywhere willing to give to other men all the rights they demand for themselves, and co-operation takes the place of competition, then will Godwin's philosophy be not too great and good for daily food. Among the many who read his book and thought they saw in it the portent of a diviner day was one Percy Bysshe Shelley.

And so it came to pass that about the year Eighteen Hundred Thirteen, this Percy Bysshe Shelley called on Godwin, who was living in a rusty, musty tenement in Somerstown. The young man was twenty: tall and slender, with as handsome a face as was ever given to mortal. The face was pale as marble: the features almost feminine in their delicacy: thin lips, straight nose, good teeth, abundant, curling hair, and eyes so dreamy and sorrowful that women on the street would often turn and follow the "angel soul garbed in human form."

This man Shelley was sick at heart, bereft, perplexed, in sore straits, and to whom should he turn for advice in this time of undoing but to Godwin, the philosopher! Besides, Godwin had been the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, and the splendid precepts of these two had nourished into being all the latent excellence of the youth. Yes, he would go to Godwin, the Plato of England!

And so he went to Godwin.

Now, this young man Shelley was of noble blood. His grandfather was Sir Bysshe Shelley, Bart., and worth near three hundred thousand pounds, all of which would some day come to our pale-faced youth. But the youth was a republican—he believed in the brotherhood of man. He longed to benefit his fellows, to lift them out of the bondage of fear, and sin, and ignorance. After reading Hume, and Godwin, and Wollstonecraft, he had decided that Christianity as defined by the Church of England was a failure: it was only an organized fetish, kept in place by the State, and devoid of all that thrills to noble thinking and noble doing.

And so young Shelley at Oxford had written a pamphlet to this end, explaining the matter to the world.

A copy being sent to the headmaster of the school, young Shelley was hustled off the premises in short order, and a note was sent to his father requesting that the lad be well flogged and kept several goodly leagues from Oxford.

Shelley the elder was furious that his son should so disgrace the family name, and demanded he should write another pamphlet supporting the Church of England and recanting all the heresy he had uttered. Young Percy replied that conscience would not admit of his doing this. The father said conscience be blanked: and further used almost the same words that were used by Professor Jowett some years later to a certain skeptical youth.

Professor Jowett sent for the youth and said, "Young man, I am told that you say you can not find God. Is this true?"

"Yes, sir," said the youth.

"Well, you will please find Him before eight o'clock tonight or get out of this college."

Shelley was not allowed to return home, and moreover his financial allowance was cut off entirely.

And so he wandered up to London and chewed the cud of bitter fancy, resolved to starve before he would abate one jot or tittle of what he thought was truth. And he might have starved had not his sisters sent him scanty sums of money from time to time. The messenger who carried the money to him was a young girl by the name of Harriet Westbrook, round and smooth and pink and sixteen. Percy was nineteen. Harriet was the daughter of an innkeeper and did not get along very well at home. She told Percy about it, and of course she knew his troubles, and so they talked about it over the gate, and mutually condoled with each other.

Soon after this Harriet had a fresh quarrel with her folks; and with the tears yet on her pretty lashes ran straight to Shelley's lodging and throwing herself into his arms proposed that they cease to fight unkind Fate, and run away together and be happy ever afterward.

And so they ran away.

Shelley's father instanced this as another proof of depravity and said, "Let 'em go!" The couple went to Scotland. In a few months they came back from Scotland, because no one can really be happy away from home. Besides they were out of money—and neither one had ever earned any money—and as the Westbrooks were willing to forgive, even if the Shelleys were not, they came back. But the Westbrooks were only willing to forgive in consideration of Percy and Harriet being properly married by a clergyman of the Church of England. Now, Shelley had not wavered in his Godwin-Wollstonecraft theories, but he was chivalrous and Harriet was tearful, and so he gracefully waived all private considerations and they were duly married. It was a quiet wedding.

In a short time a baby was born.

Harriet was amiable, being healthy and having very moderate sensibilities. She had no opinion on any subject, and in no degree sympathized with Shelley's wild aspirations. She thought a title would be nice, and urged that her husband make peace by renouncing his "infidelity." Literature was silly business anyway, and folks should do as other folks did. If they didn't, lawks-a-daisy! there was trouble!!

And so, with income cut off, banished from home, from school, out of employment, with a wife who had no sympathy with him—who could not understand him—whose pitiful weakness stung him and wrung him, he thought of Godwin, the philosopher: for at the last philosophy is the cure for all our ills.

Godwin was glad to see Shelley—Godwin was glad to see any one. Godwin was fifty-five, bald, had a Socratic forehead, was smooth-cheeked, shabby and genteel. Yes, Godwin was the author of "Political Justice"—but that was written quite a while before, twenty years!

One of the girls was sent out for a quart of half-and-half, and the pale visitor cast his eyes around this family room, which served for dining-room, library and parlor. Godwin had married again—Shelley had heard that, but he was a bit shocked to find that the great man who was once mate to Mary Wollstonecraft had married a shrew. The sound of her high-pitched voice convinced the visitor at once that she was a very commonplace person.

There were three girls and a boy in the room, busy at sewing or reading. None of them was introduced, but the air of the place was Bohemian, and the conversation soon became general. All talked except one of the girls: she sat reading, and several times when the young man glanced over her way she was looking at him. Shelley stayed an hour, spending a very pleasant time, but as he had no opportunity of stating his case to the philosopher he made an engagement to call again.

As he groped his way downstairs and walked homewards he mused. The widow Clairmont, whom Godwin had married, was a worldling, that was sure; her daughter Jane was good-looking and clever, but both she and Charles, the boy, were the children of their mother—he had picked them out intuitively. The little young woman with brown eyes and merry ways was Fanny Godwin, the first child of Mary Wollstonecraft and adopted daughter of Godwin. The tall slender girl who was so very quiet was the daughter of Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.

"Ye gods, what a pedigree!" said Shelley.

The young man called again, and after explaining his situation was advised to go back home and make peace with his wife and father at any cost of personal intellectual qualms. Philosophy was all right; but life was one thing and philosophy another. Live with Harriet as he had vowed to do—love was a good deal glamour, anyway; write poetry, of course, if he felt like it, but keep it to himself. The world was not to be moved by enthusiastic youth. Godwin had tried it—he had been an enthusiastic youth himself, and that was why he now lived in Somerstown instead of Piccadilly. Move in the line of least resistance.

Shelley went away shocked and stunned. Going by Old Saint Pancras Church he turned back to step in a moment and recover his scattered senses. He walked through the cool, dim, old building, out into the churchyard, where toppling moss-covered gray slabs marked the resting-places of the sleeping dead. All seemed so cool and quiet and calm there! The dead are at rest: they have no vexatious problems.

A few people were moving about, carelessly reading the inscriptions. The young man unconsciously followed their example; he passed slowly along one of the walks, scanning the stones. His eye fell upon the word "Wollstonecraft," marked on a plain little slate slab. He paused and, leaning over removed his hat and read, and then glancing just beyond, saw seated on the grass—the tall girl. She held a book in her hands, but she was looking at him very soberly. Their eyes met, and they smiled just a little. The young man sat down on the turf on the other side of the grave from the girl, and they talked of the woman by whose dust they watched: and the young man found that the tall girl was an Ancestor-Worshiper and a mystic, and moreover had a flight of soul that held him in awe. Besides, in form and feature, she was rarely beautiful. She was quiet, but she could talk.

The next day, as Percy Shelley strolled through the churchyard of Old Saint Pancras, the tall girl was there again with her book, in the same place.

* * * * *

When Shelley made that first call at the Godwins he was twenty. The three girls he met were fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, respectively. Mary being the youngest in years, but the most mature, she would have easily passed for the oldest. Now, all three of these girls were dazzled by the beauty and grace and intellect of the strange, pale-faced visitor.

He came to the house again and again during the next few months. All the girls loved him violently, for that's the way girls under eighteen often love. Mr. Godwin soon discovered the fact that all his girls loved Shelley. They lost appetite, and were alternately in chills of fear and fevers of ecstacy. Mr. Godwin, being a kind man and a good, took occasion to explain to them that Mr. Shelley was a married man, and although it was true he did not live on good terms with his wife, yet she was his lawful wife, and marriage was a sacred obligation: of course, pure philosophy or poetic justice took a different view, but in society the marriage-tie must not be held lightly. In short, Shelley was married and that was all there was about it.

Shelley still continued to call, coming via Saint Pancras Church. In a few months, Mary confided to Jane that she and Shelley were about to elope, and Jane must make peace and explain matters after they were gone.

Jane cried and declared she would go, too—she would go or die: she would go as servant, scullion—anything, but go she would. Shelley was consulted, and to prevent tragedy consented to Jane going as maid to Mary, his well-beloved.

So the trinity eloped. It being Shelley's second elopement, he took the matter a little more coolly than did the girls, who had never eloped before. Having reached Dover, and while waiting at a hotel for the boat, the landlord suddenly appeared and breathlessly explained to Shelley, "A fat woman has just arrived and swears that you have run away with her girls!"

It was Mrs. Godwin.

The party got out by the back way and hired a small boat to take them to Calais. They embarked in a storm, and after beating about all night, came in sight of France the next morning as the sun arose.

Godwin was very much grieved and shocked to think that Shelley had broken in upon established order and done this thing. But Shelley had read Godwin's book and simply taken the philosopher at his word: "The impulses of the human heart are just and right; they are greater than law, and must be respected."

The runaways seemed to have had a jolly time in France as long as their money lasted. They bought a mule to carry their luggage, and walked. Jane's feet blistered, however, and they seated her upon the luggage upon the mule, and as the author of "Queen Mab" led the patient beast, Mary with a switch followed behind. After some days Shelley sprained his ankle, and then it was his turn to ride while Mary led the mule and Jane trudged after.